|Sci-Fi|: Eras of Cain Ch 6 |Sci-IRL|: What Does Space Smell Like?
Fic: Trin’s already doubting his entire future when Lucifer makes him doubt the data from his cybernetic augmentations. Science IRL Article: Compounds found in space
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Previously…Cain tried to save her best friend/fellow cyborg, Trin, from a violent scene in a dark alley when she lost control of her cybernetically enhanced strength. After she accidentally(?) killed the assailant with skills she didn’t know she had, she and Trin fled from an army of cop bots and caught a getaway ride out of their universe with Cain’s Mom and Dad…
Trinian Slade was drunk on an illegal spaceship—worldship—owned by the richest couple in his home universe, dancing on the galley table with an overdressed stranger who called himself Lucifer.
Trin wasn’t sure if he was having the time of his life or a panic attack.
Would he ever make it back home? Could he survive the slums if he did? His highest-paying customer was freshly dead, with his eyes gouged out (by Cain of all people!).
Trin’s body was buzzing, but maybe that’s how spacetime travel felt. Or dancing with Lucifer.
Did he have nothing but fresh problems, or were the stars streaming by the window whispering something about a fresh start?
If the stars were whispering, he couldn’t hear it over the rave music.
Lucifer writhed in and out of strobing lights—his long, thin body a velvet-clad ribbon of darkness crowned with that boyish blond hair. Like a gold-tipped flag riding a sine wave in a mighty wind.
Trin’s augs auto-fixated on Lucifer and he was too drunk to worry what this stranger might think about a high school geek staring. Trin modulated his aurals to filter out the music until it was nearly silent. He listened hard, held his breath, seeking the sound of Lucifer’s heartbeat.
Silence.
Trin gasped. Staggered.
There was a fantastic metallic crash and it took Trin a moment to realize he and the galley trash cans had orchestrated the kerfuffle. He was on his back, looking up at Lucifer, who was still dancing as if he lacked the hard limits of a skeleton.
“Trin? Trin, are you okay?” Cain appeared across the room framed in the narrow doorway, then she was suddenly hauling him to his feet.
The giant spider-octopus bot…Rosie…crawled toward them with half her legs on the floor and the others on the wall. “Lucifer, Earl of dimness and dimmer judgment, you galactic nightmare, why is this boy drunk?”
A single bright red sensor on Rosie’s face strobed light across Trin’s unsuspecting retinas.
“Are we drunk?” Lucifer asked, “It was just a nip, my dearest duchess, Rosie.”
“A nip of what?” Rosie snapped, then more sweetly to Trin, “Honey, I’m going to give you something to sober you up, you okay with that?”
Trin felt it was very important to cause no trouble, so he nodded. A lance of pain shot through his arm.
“There, now you just sit tight while I start dinner.” She waved one of her arms and the rave lights and music evaporated. Lucifer whined like a fumbled note on a flute.
Cain seemed to be draping a blanket over Trin. It came laden with an avalanche of scents—leather and almonds, burnt plastic and gasoline...and…Trin’s scent augs went into overdrive. Reams of molecular information poured into his database.
“Hey, you can’t just put that on the ground!” Lucifer groused. “It’s vintage.”
The avalanche of scents disappeared along with the slight weight of whatever Cain had draped over him.
“Ugh. Uncle Luce, I forgot you can be the actual worst.”
Trin stared as Lucifer settled his velvet green suit jacket over his shoulders.
“Vintage? Vintage what? That smells—” Trin said.
“—Sorry about him,” Cain said, then mumbled something Trin didn’t hear. His attention had latched instead onto the dimple in Lucifer’s cheek. Lucifer tossed his blond bangs out of his eyes and winked down at Trin. Like they’d just managed to share an important secret without Cain or Rosie noticing.
The uninvited intimacy sobered Trin right up. Or maybe it was whatever was in Rosie’s sobering injection.
Trin stood and smiled awkwardly at Cain, then looked around for absolutely any good reason to leave the galley, but thankfully Lucifer left instead. He turned elegantly on his shiny heel and sidled toward the door, whistling a lilting tune.
Trin watched him go, pulling up the chemical scent list from Lucifer’s jacket sample.
Elemental Hydrogen, Cyanide, Methanol, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Trin’s database had never actually encountered this list of compounds combined before. Trin’s all-organic memory, however, recalled a seminar from Astrophysics II about the cloud of gasses around the birth of a star. Hydrogen, Cyanide, and PAH’s had been top of that list.
Trin shook his head. Whatever Lucifer gave him to drink must’ve interfered with the bio-sensory aug interfaces. Lucifer surely wasn’t a man with no heartbeat, wearing a jacket that smelled like elemental planet ingredients.
That was stuff of dreams and fairytales. Stuff of nonsense.
To be continued…
|Sci-IRL|: What Space Smells Like
Space doesn’t have an odor in a way that humans can pick up on. If our meatbag bodies with the requisite olfactory senses were exposed to the atmosphere, we’d die from the frigid temperature, lack of oxygen, and organ-crushing pressure vacuum.
Astronauts returning from a spacewalk (Extra Vehicular Activity, or EVA) do report an acrid odor coming from the suit. This is likely more the result of the compounds from the metallic structure of the space station and the volatile materials in the fabric of the spacesuit outgassing in the space vacuum and perhaps interacting with space radiation.
But. Space itself is nothing but empty, of course.
In this chapter, Trin notices a weird mix of scents rolling off Lucifer’s jacket and thinks of the compounds present in space around the birth of stars.
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